Case Study – Kate Rampone – Amnesty International

Amnesty International is a non-profit organization that is worldwide and focuses on human rights. They are active in over 150 countries around the globe and have millions of supporters. Facebook and Twitter are the two main platforms they use to mobilize their supporters through social media. I took a look at their campaign called “Arms Control and Human Rights” began. Throughout this lengthy campaign which started in the 1990s, Amnesty International has been “calling for a treaty to ensure that states stop allowing transfers of military and policing equipment where it is likely those arms will be used for serious human rights abuses.” With the growing popularity of social media sites in the early 2000s, Amnesty International jumped on board and created a strong presence online. This organization skillfully synchronizes the content between their Twitter and Facebook accounts to create a very powerful campaign because the message is clearly transmitted to their audiences. Also, frequently tweeting and posting on their wall allowed the organization multiple opportunities to get out their message. Each time they made a post or tweet, it was shared, liked, retweeted, or favorited by hundreds of people, which created a lot of buzz and reached the eyes of millions of people. Finally, publicly putting pressure on government officials on Twitter seemed to have a very persuasive effect. In April of this year, a majority of the governments of the United Nations voted to adopt the proposed treaty. With that being said, this campaign was a huge success for the organization and I think it is due in large part to their strong and persistent presence on social media websites.